Good morning, and we are back!
It’s November 1st, Road to Power Struggle has led us to Shizuoka, where, tonight, CHAOS will finally assemble a team without Rocky Romero, and, therefore, without obvious to be pinned canididate, to face Bullet Club OG. Let’s get it on!
Robbie Eagles vs Yota Tsuji
Eagles pins Tsuji fairly quickly with a move I haven’t seen before, hard to describe, and one I couldn’t find online. Sorry!
2. Jushin “Thunder” Liger, Tiger Mask & Tomoaki Honma vs Volador Jr. Soberano Jr & Ren Narita
Very unusual to see Narita here. Honma makes him tap out to the STF for the finish.
3. Yoshinobu Kanemaru & El Desperado vs ACH & Shota Umino
ACH is wearing the stupid rugby uniform. Umino is obviously here to take the pin. El Desperado hits Umino with a spinebuster and applies Numero Dos for a submission win.
4. Bushi & Shingo Takagi (with Tetsuya Naito) vs Ryusuke Taguchi & Ayato Yoshida
OK, I love warm-up Young Lion matches, but we are four bouts in and so far every match contained somebody obviously there to take the loss. It is surprising to see Naito here, he doesn’t normally come out with his teammates, unless he is part of the match. A little later we see him, sitting in the front row, in a special corner area. For the finish Takagi clotheslined Yoshida and pinned him. Yoshida looked really good in this match. Naito didn’t seem happy after the match, or, maybe he was supposed to be worried about something.
5. Tomohiro Ishii & Rocky Romero vs Minoru Suzuki & TAKA Michinoku
Ok, this is a step up. Both Romero and TAKA have been used to take the pin, so the winner here is unclear (though so far on this tour it’s been Ishii’s team) Romero pins TAKA with La Magistral.
6. Hiroshi Tanahashi & Toa Henare vs Yujiro Takahashi & Chase Owens
Henare was dominating Owens, but Takahashi came in and Owens, surprisingly, pinned Toa with a packaged piledriver. I am surprised, as Ace is the only one here who New Japan is promoting at the time.
7. Kushida & Chris Sabin vs Roppongi 3K (with Rocky Romero)
If I understood the last tournament table I saw correctly, a win here would mean Roppongi 3K repeat as Junior Tag League champions. If they don’t win, Suzuki Gun’s team of Yoshinobu Kanemaru and El Desperado would triumph. A very very good match took place. The new version of Timesplitters dominated SHO for a long time and really made it seem like they were going to win afterwards. However, SHO and YOH mounted a comeback and won with their usual double flapjack on Sabin.
However….it appears that instead of a clear winner, there was another team that’s due to its points made it a three way tie. Bushi & Shingo Takagi make it to ringside.
8. Kazuchika Okada, Hirooki Goto, Toru Yano & Best Friends vs Jay White, Guerillas of Destiny, Bad Luck Fale & Gedo (with Jado)
I am not going to write this up as this was exactly like the Tokyo match, only after Jay White blade runnered and pinned Chuckie T, there was no beatdown and no Tanahashi save, just Okada being held back from White.
